Students Form Residential Life Task Force

A new student task force will give undergraduates an opportunity to influence College policy on issues ranging from academic advising to alcohol regulations.

The Task Force on Residential Life met with about 15 undergraduates for the first time this weekend and will continue to meet weekly or biweekly to solicit student input on residential life, according to S. Adam Goldenberg ’08, who is leading the task force.

Five Committee on House Life (CHL) student representatives comprise the task force and will report its findings to the CHL, said Goldenberg, who is vice-chair of the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) of the Undergraduate Council (UC).

In addition to Goldenberg, the CHL representatives include UC members, Brian S. Gillis ’07-’08, Joseph W. Stanley ’09, Winthrop House Committee (HoCo) chair Michael J. Robin ’08, and SAC chair Ryan A. Petersen ’08.

Originally, the leaders of the task force planned to divide into five committees to address advising, alcohol and drug strategy, dining, house activities, and housing, Goldenberg said at Sunday’s meeting.

But students who attended the meeting said that this structure would too closely mirror that of the CHL, and proposed making the task force a more informal link between undergraduates and administrators.

Associate Dean of the College for Residential Life Suzy M. Nelson wrote in an e-mail Monday that the task force will help the CHL get more student input and “make the CHL meetings more meaningful.”

“The way student advocacy works now is that the UC, SAC and CHL reps make the agenda,” said Goldenberg, who is also a Crimson editor. “That’s why big things happen very rarely in House Life.”

The task force members said they will help students interested in particular issues draft legislation to push policies forward, he added.

The task force’s second meeting will come after the Harvard-Yale Game. Students will discuss standardizing alcohol policy across the Houses, from Stein Clubs to private parties, Goldenberg said.

“There’s no uniform policy for carding at Stein Clubs. It’s literally house-to-house, incident-to-incident,” said Dunster HoCo Co-Chair Samantha H. Fink.

-Crimson Staff Writer Aditi Banga can be reached at abanga@fas.harvard.edu -Crimson Staff Writer Katherine M. Gray can be reached at kmgray@fas.harvard.edu